


Lovestruck

by Biting Words (Reyna_is_epic)



Series: We're Both A Bit Of A Mess [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Brigitte has no idea how to talk to girls, Canon-Typical Violence, Cats, F/F, Fluff, Hana needs help, Lena Oxton is a little shit, Lesbian, Lesbian Lena "Tracer" Oxton, MekaMechanic, Mom Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Mutual Pining, POV shifts, Road Trips, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, background pharmercy - Freeform, bi disaster Hana song, bird moms, minor christmas, most characters are background, older sister lena oxton, started as a one shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-18 16:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14217486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyna_is_epic/pseuds/Biting%20Words
Summary: Brigitte swears up and down that she fell in love on the twenty-third of December to the tune of Shake it off, riding down the highway at a speed well over legal and eyes pressed so tightly closed she could see colors dancing beneath them.Hana says she fell in love on a Sunday morning when a tall red-headed woman came barreling into the kitchen in nothing more than a skin-tight blue t-shirt, bright pink boxers, screaming that she was going to murder ‘that Sixty-year old millennial bastard!’Regardless they both agree that it wasn’t a gradual thing. Brigitte didn’t find herself watching the girl across the dining hall at 3 in the morning, attempting to neck an entire gallon of Redbull in an attempt to stay awake long enough to finish whatever campaign she was working on. Hana didn’t take much longer than necessary walking down the corridor adjacent to the workshop in order to catch a glimpse of Reinhardt getting his ass handed to him by some redhead gesturing wildly at him with a wrench.No, It came sudden, hard, and fast.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> So originally this was meant to be a one-shot, but then once I started it, it ended up being over twenty pages long, so I'm going to break it up over about three chapters. Enjoy, and leave a comment of your thoughts. -M

 

 

When Morrison said she was going on a transportation mission with Hana Song to the middle of fuck nowhere during what was supposed to be her Christmas break, she almost just didn’t show up to the mission.

 

It was nothing against the kid personally, she admired her, she was by at least three years the youngest member of Overwatch (human member at least) and yet she managed to not only keep up with the rest of them but continue her career at the same time. Brigitte was ecstatic to work with the girl.

 

But Christmas was a sacred time of year, and for crying out loud Morrison, she couldn’t even spare a week to see her mother?

 

Evidently not, and instead she found herself crammed into the passenger seat of a large moving van with a person she’d spoken to maybe twice praying to God that the van wouldn’t explode behind them and kill them.

 

Fun times all around.

 

The fact that apparently the only fucking station their car could reach was the ‘old age pop’ station just made it all the much worse. So if her eye was twitching and she was sighing every goddamn minute she really couldn’t be blamed.

 

“You okay over there?” Hana finally asked after she sighed for the umpteenth time, glaring at the snowflakes falling outside their window with absolute hatred.

 

“Just fine,” she grumbled through gritted teeth, only to be met with a pair of dubious brown eyes.

 

Now, she had met Hana before, in fact, they’d been stationed at the same base for almost four months before the transport mission, so Brigitte liked to believe they were at least acquaintances. After you’d seen someone in a frog onesie with toothpaste in their hair you had to be, but Hana continued to evade even her deepest thought processes at three am when she found it impossible to sleep.

 

She was smart, frighteningly so, funny, charming, and all around just the type of person who you could stand being trapped in a car with for four days, but at the same time she was mysterious to a point Brigitte had no idea that the girl even knew her name until she had greeted her three hours previously. She was a celebrity, and to top that off she was probably the only person in Overwatch she’d greeted so far who hadn’t looked at her as if to say ‘who let this child in here unsupervised?’

 

So attempting to strike up a conversation with said celebrity in a cramped old truck coughing on its deathbed over a crackly old radio wasn’t exactly easy. Much less one about her disappointment in not getting to go home for the holidays and all around homesickness.

 

“I am,” she tried to reassure the younger woman, but again she was only met with an eye-roll.

 

“That was the twenty-third time you’ve sighed within the hour,” Hana supplies, eyes scanning their way back onto the road in order to gently guide the truck around the edge of an ice patch. Why they had to take this truck full of explosives through a four-day drive in the Rocky Mountains was beyond Brigitte, but she knew better than to question it at this point.

 

“Twenty third?” she asks, slightly incredulous. Hana smirked slightly, and Brigitte elected to ignore how her eyes instantly caught onto the twitch of her lips.

 

“Yes, I started counting after the fifth,” she glances over again and bares her teeth in a full grin. Brigitte is struck with how, without the face makeup, she looks so completely and totally normal. Pretty, yes, but normal, human, it makes something warm stir in her chest. She shoves it down and shifts slightly in her seat so that the seat belt of the truck is no longer digging into her neck.

 

“Alright, perhaps I’m a little upset about the timing of all of this,” she mutters and is met with a raised brow.

 

“Of what?” Hana’s eyes slide back towards the road and she slows down as she spots a pothole on the horizon.

\

“This… mission,” she mutters and Hana only hums in response.

 

“Right, isn’t it getting close to… what was it, Hannuka?” She asks and Brigitte makes a face.

 

“I’m pretty sure Hanuka’s already passed,” she chuckles softly, “Christmas is what you’re thinking of, and yes… I’m just… disappointed I didn’t get to go home a visit my family, y’know?” She hopes that she doesn’t sound too homesick. Hana frowns, brows knitting together slightly.

 

“I guess, but I’ve never really had a family holiday,” she mutters, “unless thanksgiving with Angela and Lena counts.” Brigitte blinks.

 

“Never?” she asks, “Not even before you joined the Korean forces?”

 

Hana’s smile is pained in a way that Brigitte never even thought possible. “My parents weren’t very Traditional and they never really bothered with it. Appa was utterly committed to his work and Eomma was never around much anyway.”

 

Brigitte blinks, focusing on the shorter girl in a new light before slowly gazing back out into the white landscape surrounding them. The white-topped surfaces and rocky outcrops occasionally poking though only made her miss home more, but she tried with renewed strength to shove it down. It wasn’t fair to miss something the person next to her never even had, however, Hana didn’t quite seem to mind.

 

“I do kinda get it though,” she murmurs as the radio begins to lull back into some man’s southern twanged voice as he attempts to convince whoever’s listening to buy a car, “Sometimes when it gets late at night I find myself missing the sounds of the crickets, the smell of the bakery down the street, and Halmeoni’s sweetcakes. I miss Jun’s guitar and the old cat that slept underneath the porch when it rained.” Her voice turns that special kind of wistful that Brigitte's heard all too often from Reinhardt when he talks about Overwatch’s glory days.

 

“I think we miss things when we know that we aren’t going to see them again, at least not for a long time,” she finds herself murmuring and is only mildly disturbed with the solemness in her own voice. Hana only hums again in agreement. They fall silent again as the gentle notes of someone’s guitar fill the cabin, barely making it over the roaring heaters and coughing engine, but Brigitte finds that it’s enough and that maybe it’s not that lonely after all.

 

~

 

When they bed down for the night Brigitte feels the loneliness come back with a vengeance.

 

It’s just that wrapped in a sleeping bag watching the stars glitter so far away, in a pattern almost completely different from the one she’s used to back home, she can feel her heart ache in her chest. Hana’s still attempting to get the old heater that Jack had supplied with them working, but Brigitte knows that it’s hopeless, the poor thing is even further in the grave than the Truck.

 

“Hana,” she calls softly, the utter silence of the woods surrounding them making her feel utterly blasting. Hana doesn’t respond right away, instead, she continues battering at the clunky piece of metal before letting out a final groan of frustration and dropping onto her back in defeat. The snow crunches underneath her and Brigitte can see the particles of it glittering in her hair, she has to restrain a smile.

 

“It’s too damn cold for this!” she grunts and throws their failed source of heat towards the nearest tree where it falls with only a mild thunk. Brigitte lets the chuckle escape her this time. She feels a little better now.

 

“You could try and make a fire, that is if you could find any dry wood, though that would probably not be an easy feat,” she mutters and receives a faceful of snow in response. She spits it out and glares at Hana who only laughs in response. “Or you could do that and risk giving both of us hypothermia.”

 

Hana laughs again, but she doesn’t attempt to pie her in the face with more snow so Brigitte takes that as a silent victory.

 

“Sorry, but your face was just,” she offers a thumbs up and the dimples that appear on her cheeks kindle something warm in her chest once again. Brigitte rolls her eyes.

 

“If you’re really that cold just scoot your ass over here, or get back in the damn car,” she grumbles and Hana just laughs again.

 

“And I always took you for the happy go lucky one,” she teases, eliciting only an eye roll in response.

 

“I’m happy go lucky when I’m not cold and sneezing out snowflakes,” she grunts back. Hana only responds by pushing her back down, Brigitte huffs slightly, but the grin adorning her own face is playful, mirroring the one Hana continues to flash her way.

 

“Alright, so our only source of heat is each other and an old truck probably built last century, fun,” she grunts before settling in beside her and Brigitte elects to ignore the sudden difficulty in breathing or the fact that everything smells like hyacinths flowers.

 

“On the bright side, we didn’t have to drive through the desert,” she mutters back and is again greeted with a faceful of snow. She makes sure that she spits it back into Hana’s face. She squeaks and ducks away from her and Brigitte just celebrates her silent victory.

 

“You’re a menace.”

 

“I’m not the one repeatedly putting snow in my face when it’s already well below zero,” she reminds and is met with the biggest pout she’s seen to date, and okay maybe she lied, maybe she fell in love on the twenty-first of December at ass-o’clock in the morning with snow in her hair and ice in her bones.

 

“Menace,” Hana argues and all Brigitte can do is laugh and pretend she still has her heartbeat under control.

 

~

 

Brigitte can handle a lot of things, but driving without coffee while the sun is reflecting off of literally every surface possible into her eyes is not one of them. If she has to deal with this for much longer if they go flying over the side of the mountain it isn’t her fault. It doesn’t help, of course, that Hana had fallen back asleep almost as soon as the heat kicked back in the old truck.

 

The girl was curled up like a cat over the truck bench, head resting haphazardly in her lap and every minute or two she makes this soft little huffing noise that is slowly driving Brigitte straightjacket mad.

 

Brigitte was no stranger to cute girls, no of course not. Cute girls existed in all corners of the world and she had been subjected to dealing with a good portion of the ones she’d come across in a strictly professional manner, but Hana Song is on a completely different level.

 

Hana Song is bubblegum chapstick, cherry blossom blush, and dark chocolate eyes that seem to captivate every fiber of her being. Hana Song is sickeningly sweet yet at the same time a force to be reckoned with. Brigitte has no doubt that if push came to shove Hana could, and would, demolish her crusader armor with nothing more than a smirk and a triumphant ‘nerf this!’

 

The image is enough to nearly get her to stop panicking about the cute girl in her lap.

 

Then Hana makes this soft humming noise and grabs the material of her sweater, pulling it closer to hide her face in and Brigitte actually has to swerve in order to avoid careening over a cliff.

 

This girl is going to be the death of her.

 

~

 

A morning of attempting to navigate the snowy terrain and not crash the car due to cute overload later, Brigitte finds herself crammed into an old run-down diner in the middle of bumfuck nowhere America while Hana argues with a twelve-year-old over who’s better at whatever shooting game their currently both losing at.

 

The day Brigitte sees Hana lose and be okay with it is the day hell freezes over.

 

However it is kinda cute, Hana with her cheeks all puffed up and glowing pink, eyes narrowed and tongue sticking out just the slightest as she tries and fails to hit a virtual duck with an arcade gun that Brigitte is sure is older than Reinhardt.

 

It’s enough to make her glad she isn’t the one who has to drive for the rest of the day.

 

“Hana,” she calls as the waitress sets down the ungodly amount of sugar that Hana ordered on the table alongside Brigitte’s much more reasonable order of eggs and steak. Hana just makes a grunt of acknowledgment before feeding more quarters into the ancient machine.

 

“Hana,” she tries again, but Hana only has eyes for the arcade machine, in the reflection of the glow Brigitte can just make out tiny scars along the bridge of her nose like she had glass impaled there once. The machine makes a noise like a dying squirrel and Hana groans in exasperation, draping herself over the console in defeat for the umpteenth time. Brigitte can find the corners of her mouth pulling upwards and too late does she register the laugh bubbling through her chest. She’s made with a sour glare and that just sets her off worse, half doubled over the table as Hana glares at her with all the fury of a five-year-old.

 

“Stop laughing! I am a world class gamer!” she complains and Brigitte finally pries herself free from the booth to join Hana and the annoyed looking twelve-year-old at the console. She calmly takes the gun from Hana’s deathgrip and feeds a few more quarters into the machine.

 

“The trick of these games is to aim above whatever you’re shooting at, the calibration is bad on them since they’re so old,” and with that Brigitte successfully bags three bucks in two shots and a fourth through the branches of a tree right before it runs off screen. Hana whines, loudly, at the unfairness of the game and Brigitte just chuckles before setting the gun back down on its pedestal.

 

“There’s no damn way! I’m calling hacks!” Hana complains and Brigitte turns only to be met with that damn pout again. Part of her wants to pick the gun back up and aim at something more tangible.

 

With that thought, Brigitte returns to her seat and gestures at the seat across from her in indication. Hana spares the arcade machine one final glare of resentment before tromping over to join her, plunking herself down across the booth and digging into her ungodly lunch with a ferocity that made Brigitte slightly impressed.

 

“So, care to tell why you know so much about old arcade machines?” she asks through a mouthful of pancake and Brigitte carefully cuts into her steak, eyeing the girl in mild terror.

 

“I grew up with Reinhardt, and that bastard was a lunatic when he was younger. I’ll tell you that man was obsessed with old style arcade machines, he swore up and down that new holographic games were nothing compared to the originals so I spent a good portion of my childhood playing old style games on the SNES and Wii,” she mutters and carefully chews her steak watching Hana light up like a Christmas tree.

 

“You had a working SNES!” she practically shouts and Brigitte doesn’t miss the glare thrown towards them from the middle-aged woman behind the counter.

 

“If by ‘working’ you mean broke every other hour and I had to take it apart and put it back together every time, then yes,” she mutters and Hana seems undeterred, practically humming with energy and the image of a small puppy comes to mind, she bats it away and tries her hardest to focus on the topic. Video games.

 

“Dude! I would’ve killed for one of those!” Hana’s eyes seem to get wider with each word and Brigitte starts to wonder if giving this girl more sugar is a good idea.

 

“It really wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it broke, like I said, every other hour, and sounded like an old generator, crackling and sparking all the time,” she offers a shrug, but Hana just keeps shaking her head in disbelief.

 

“Dude, trust me, those things are worth, like, ten thousand dollars, a working one would practically be worth a million.”

 

Brigitte pauses in the consumption of her eggs.

 

“Well if I’d known that I wouldn’t have given it to my little sister,” she mutters. Hana’s head cocks to the side and the image of the puppy comes rushing back.

 

“You have a sister?” she asks and Brigitte sighs.

 

“Five,” she mutters and Hana chokes on her pancakes. “And three younger brothers. I’m the oldest by, like, three years?” she knits her eyebrows. How old _is_ Gwen now?

 

“Jesus,” Hana mutters and makes a face, “I did not want that image of Torbjörn in my head.”

 

It’s Brigitte turn to choke now it seems.

 

“Oh my God, Hana!” she shouts, feeling the heat rushing to her face and traveling it’s way down her neck until she’s sure she resembles a tomato. Hana’s smile is sheepish, but her laugh comes bouncing out of her unbidden and filled with such mirth that Brigitte can’t help but join in.

 

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” Hana’s voice is still shaking with laughter when she manages to get the words out and Brigitte is struggling to breathe just as much.

 

“That is my father,” she grumbles, still red in the cheeks and Hana laughs again, slightly more controlled, but it’s enough to make her grin again. “So how about you, any siblings?”

 

Hana’s smile turns strained, “an older sister,” she mutters and idly nudges a piece of pancake around in the syrup. “We don’t talk much, she’s just… a lot older than I am, like twelve years older than me, and we had different moms so that didn’t exactly make her more keen on me. We only see each other every couple years when Appa gets in one of his moods and drags us all back home.”

 

Brigitte purses her lips and looks back down at her half eaten meal. Maybe she should make more of an effort of visiting home next year.

 

“I kinda get it, I see dad all the time because we work together, but my mom, and my siblings…” she shakes her head, “I haven’t actually spoken to Gwen in a while, she’s off doing her whole, geneticist thing, but I just don’t ever have the time to call…” she feels so lame for that excuse. Hana’s gaze has settled back on the arcade machine, but it’s no longer a competitive look, instead, it’s wistful almost.

 

“My sister… we didn’t get along well, but we always did love this one racing game my dad had gotten her when she turned, like ten,” Hana’s smile makes a reappearance and it’s a little sad, but Brigitte finds herself latching onto it. “That was the only time she would ever give me the time of day when we were both focused solely on this stupid racing game and oh my god it was so bad.” Her laugh is so much sadder than it was a moment ago.

 

“It was this stupid, low budget racing game with the worse graphics of the century, the frame rate was jerky, the thing broke all the time, had a million glitches, and cost, like, two dollars at Walmart,” Brigitte doesn’t miss Hana suddenly wiping at her eyes, but decides not to comment on it. “But damn we loved that racing game. She always whipped my butt at it, but I guess she did have a bit of an unfair advantage.”

 

“What’s her name?” Brigitte decides that’s the safest topic. Hana smiles gratefully and wipes at her face again.

 

“Eun ha,” she sniffles, “she’s in the military now, a sergeant I think.”

 

“And you’re a world-class gamer/Meka pilot,” Brigitte offers and Hana laughs again, watery, but not quite as sad.

 

“Thanks,” she mutters and Brigitte smiles softly.

 

“Don’t thank me, I’m just telling the truth,” she murmurs and takes another bite of her steak to punctuate her sentence. Hana’s smile doesn’t fade.

 

~

 

Brigitte wakes up late that evening when Hana swerves violently, throwing the car almost vertically against what Brigitte hopes is a rock face and not a building before suddenly crashing back down on all four wheels, sending her unbuckled ass careening upwards in her seat and bashing her head on the cabin ceiling.

 

“Vad i helvete?!” she shouts, not quite at the point of cognitive ability that includes English yet.

 

“Talon!” is all Hana supplies before taking the truck on another mad swerve, faintly Brigitte registers gunfire in the background, but most of her brain is focused on the horrendous pounding in her head where it made contact with the ceiling. She presses her fingers to the spot and curses again when she can register something warm and wet.

 

“Well, we’ve got a bit of a problem,” she grumbles, “the only weapons we have on hand are the explosives we’re supposed to be transporting.”

 

“Not true,” Hana mutters, working the wheel like a madman. Glancing at the rearview mirror Brigitte is able to make out a heavily armored black military grade truck riding just a couple yards behind their own. She curses again.

 

“What do you me-” Brigitte starts and Hana kicks the glove compartment which springs open to reveal a compact shotgun along with about 20 shells. “Well okay then.”

 

“I insisted on it and Morrison called me crazy,” she grins faintly, flashing perfect pearly white teeth and again that warmth comes bubbling in her chest. She blames it on the head wound.

 

Not sparing a moment more on that thought Brigitte reaches for the gun, checking the compartment before rolling down the window on the passenger side. The wind howls in protest and, damn it’s a lot colder than it was at lunchtime. Brigitte swallows another expletive and leans her front half out of the truck window in order to get a better look at their attackers.

 

Fortunately, it seems Talon did not send any of their big guns. It’s just a couple of regular Talon lackeys, the ones that are about as dumb as they come and have the aim of a stormtrooper. Brigitte almost sighs in relief, but a couple of wildly missing bullets bury themselves into the side of the truck and she can hear an unpleasant rumbling come from within.

 

She sucks in her bottom lip and brings up the gun to eye level.

 

“Slow down, I need to get in closer,” she hisses to Hana who makes a grunt in disagreement but complies anyway. The truck rocks sickeningly from side to side as they take more gunfire and the road turns from paved to gravel. Brigitte bites down on her lip, hard, pulls back the pump and fires.

 

The force of the kick nearly sends her ramming her head into the ceiling again, but she manages to control it. One of the guys, the one with the particularly bad mustache, falls limp in the passenger window, blocking the view of the guy behind him. With the practiced ease Reinhardt taught her, she cocks the gun, spitting out the shell, setting her sights on the front left wheel of the truck.

 

“Look out!” Hana shouts before swerving to the left, throwing off her aim just as she was about to fire again, the gun kicks and she slams her shoulder into the side of the car, her head rings slightly and she can feel tendons popping in her arm. Faintly Brigitte is aware of the tree she very narrowly avoided colliding with headfirst.

 

“Little more warning next time,” she growls and spits a mouthful of blood out the window, she catches Hana sending her a half concerned, half sheepish look and has to duck back inside the cabin to avoid the gunfire being spit in her direction. The back of the truck is making hissing noises now akin to a dozen angry snakes and she doesn’t think that’s a good sign.

 

“You need to pull off this road,” she growls towards Hana, “we need to get somewhere and quick or this whole damn truck is going to explode.”

 

“If you’re going to take them out you better do it now then,” Hana growls and sets her gaze on something further down the road, “If we pull off here there’s no way you’ll be able to get a shot in.”

 

Brigitte offers and nod and sticks her head back out of the side of the truck. Bullets whistle past her head and she does her best to swallow down the familiar panic that tries to consume her chest. Steady now. She pulls the pump again and can hear Reinhardt’s instructions in the back of her head.

 

The tire blows apart and the truck screeches to a halt, spinning unsteadily on ice and rock. The grin comes unbidden to her lips and she offers Hana a thumbs up. Hana smiles, but something in their own truck lets out a violent squeal before the whole truck jerks. Brigitte slams back into the side of the car once more and the ringing in her head reaches an unbearable level. She can hardly see straight past all the black spots.

 

“Brigitte!” Hana calls and she faintly registers she dropped the gun. Well, shit.


	2. II

She comes to when it’s dark out, her head is still ringing slightly, but she can hear more than that now, so that’s a plus.

 

She’s laying on something soft and she can hear someone moving around her feet, but the energy to look towards the sound just isn’t there. She doesn’t even have the energy to lift her head.

 

“Of course the damn bastards just had to blast a hole in the truck,” she hears someone say then a string of a language she doesn’t understand, but would bet on her life is curse words.

 

“Hana…?” she hears herself question, but her mouth feels heavy and clumsy so it comes out more like “Haha?”

 

“Brigitte!” Hana’s voice says from somewhere beyond her field of vision and the sound of footsteps comes racing through her mind. Then there’s someone leaning over her, but in the dark of the night she can’t make out any features.

 

“Wha…” Brigitte barely gets a syllable out before something cold and metallic is shoved in her face and she barely recognizes it as a canteen in time to swallow the water being poured down her throat.

 

Coughing she turns her head away and Hana caps the canteen. At least she can move now. Vaguely, she remembers a gunfight, a jostling car, something about a pain in her shoulder.

 

“The bastards had a rocket launcher,” Hana supplies and Brigitte groans. “They blew up the supplies, completely ruined the truck, and sent both of us careening off the road and down a cliff.”

 

Brigitte groans louder and turns her head towards Hana again. Now that her eyes have adjusted slightly she can make out a bandage just above the girl’s eyebrow.

 

“How long have I been out?” she questions, Hana shrugs.

 

“A couple hours? I dunno, there’s no reception out here, not even on the satellite, I haven’t been able to get any coms through.”

 

Brigitte curses and tries to pull herself up into a sitting position. Nausea hits her like a ton of bricks and just sends her crashing back to the ground. Hana barely has time to catch her head in order stop her hurting herself again. Her eyes feel like they’re vibrating inside of her skull. 

 

“H-How far are we f-from that town we stopped at for lunch..?”

 

“A good while, We drove almost four hours before they showed up,” Hana’s voice is strained slightly. 

 

Brigitte curses a second time and tries to sit up again, slower this time. Hana helps and once she’s sitting up she registers the full scope of their situation.

 

The truck, or at least what remains of the truck, lies a few feet away, twisted and rusted metal glaring back at them in a fiery blaze of dying glory. Brigitte doesn’t even try to curse this time, instead, she just drops her head in defeat.

 

“You should go and try to find somewhere with service, I’m not getting anywhere like this,” she mutters, but Hana’s face, awash in the fiery light, is nothing but a scowl.

 

“I am not leaving you in the middle of the woods with a concussion and no way to protect yourself.”

 

“Well we can’t do anything else, we’re too far from civilization and it’s only going to get colder.”

 

Hana’s scowl deepens, “Then we need to stick together, you and I both know we’d freeze to death in minutes out here if it weren’t from that fire over there.” She gestures emptily at the blazing truck and Brigitte sighs in defeat, too tired to try and argue.

 

“Whatever, we’ll both go look in the mornin’, okay?” She can hear the fatigue in her own voice and she sees Hana’s frown.

 

“Isn’t there something about keeping concussed people awake?” she asks, but all Brigitte can do is hum idly, resting back against Hana’s support. She smells sweet like the Hycanthis her mother used to grow in the backyard and the honey Pa would bring home from the market. Her eyelids are heavy, heavy like the stars in the sky. She furrows her brow, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?

 

“Hey, Brigitte, you gotta stay with me,” Hana’s voice is warm and soft and Brigitte thinks she could fall into it.

 

“ _I’m not going anywhere,_ ” she mumbles faintly, but she isn’t quite sure it made it to English. Hana’s face swims in her vision, worried brows and pursed lips.

 

“Hey, C'mon, w-why don’t you tell me about your Christmas. y-Your family Christmas?”

 

Brigitte blinks slowly, Christmas?

 

“Huh…?” she voices her confusion and Hana jostles her slightly, lowering her from a sitting position to rest against her legs.

 

“Yeah, you said you were disappointed you couldn’t go home for Christmas, well what do you do for Christmas usually?” Hana’s face is half in shadow half in the firelight and it gives her an angelic appearance that Brigitte is sure is not natural.

 

“Chris-Christmas,” Brigitte manages, her mouth feels like rusted steel, it’s difficult to move. “m-Mama makes the pie, a-and Gwen brings in all the little poppers that the boys like-”

 

“Poppers?” Hana asks and Brigitte feels a too loose grin pull its way across her face.

 

“Y-yeah! These li-little cardboard things a-and you hold one end and someone else holds the other and wh-when y-you both pull wh-whoever gets the bigger side wins, they’ve all got li-ittle toys ‘n stuff in them.”

 

The more she talks the worse her speech gets.

 

“Oh, and do you win a lot?” Hana asks and Brigitte laughs, for some reason her back aches with the motion.

 

“N-nah, I-I let Gwen have mine,” she mutters and Hana smiles slightly.

 

“Gwen is your younger sister right?” she asks and Brigitte manages a nod.

 

“She-she’s so smart Hana… and sh-she looks jus-just like mom,” she lurches to the side suddenly, nausea spiking in her stomach. She barely has time to move her head off of Hana’s lap before she’s forced to empty the contents of her stomach on the snow. Hana makes a noise of disgust, but she still grabs and pulls Brigitte away from it.

 

“I hope your mother doesn’t look that bad,” she hears Hana mutter faintly and she manages a laugh, but it sounds strained to her own ears. The world is spinning again and the dark spots have come back with a vengeance. 

 

“H-Hana…”

 

“Yeah,” Hana’s fingers have found their way into the back of her hair and Brigitte can’t help but close her eyes at the feeling.

 

“ ‘m sorry.”

 

Hana’s fingers pause before continuing their gentle scratching motion.

 

“For what?” she asks and Brigitte whines slightly.

 

“For this… I shoulda… shoulda don’ somethin’.”

 

“You’re not making any sense Brigitte.”

 

Brigitte just whines again before resting her face against the warmth of Hana’s stomach. The ringing in her ears subsides a little bit more.

 

“ ‘m sorry I couldn’ protecc y,” her voice is slurring syllables together and she can’t really do anything other than grumble faintly.

 

“Brigitte, you gotta stay with me,” Hana insists, shaking Brigitte again, but her protests land on deaf ears.

  
  


_ ~ |Two Weeks Prior| ~ _

 

Hana dislikes Morning.

 

Correction, Hana  _ strongly _ dislikes mornings. Everything is too bright, people are too loud, and morning brings with it the promise of having to do paperwork.

 

And if there’s one thing in this world Hana can say she hates with a passion, it’s paperwork.

 

So when she’s hunched over the counter in the kitchen area, pretending, mostly for Angela’s benefit, that she actually slept last night, the last thing she expects is for something positive to happen.

 

Sure, there’s Angela and Fareeha’s unabashed flirting (but unless the Gods themselves intervene there nothing’s ever going to come of it) and Lena attempting to stack coffee creamers into a miniature Eiffel tower is always a good source of entertainment, but she’s gotten so used to it at this point that she doesn’t even bat an eye.

 

No, this morning the main reason she doesn’t fall asleep in her cup of coffee comes in the form of a frustrated scream echoing down the hallways, followed by a booming laugh and a hulking mountain of a man racing through the kitchen, cat clutched in his arms and clinging on for dear life. Hana blinks, straightening up in her seat.

 

“Wha-” she starts, only to be cut off as someone else comes storming into the kitchen.

 

The first thing that comes to Hana’s sleep-deprived brain is  _ arms. _

 

The woman has to be at least six feet of pure muscle, but it’s her arms that really stand out.  Hana can perfectly make out how each and every ligament of the woman’s muscles flex when she moves in her skin tight blue t-shirt.

 

The second thought to come to mind is _hair._

 

The woman has these long tendrils of the softest looking red hair, hanging loosely around her head in a sleep ruffled way that just reminds Hana of a kitten that had been startled awake. 

 

The third and fourth thought come jumbled as one, _freckles_ and _eyes._

 

A sea of freckles dotting the girl’s cheeks give way to a warm pair of hazel eyes that seem to trap Hana’s very soul within the depths and all she can do is stare and hope to God that her jaw is closed.

 

“Reinhardt!” The woman roars and the mountain of a man on the other side of the kitchen only offers his booming laugh before tearing out the other side of the room and down the hallway. The woman lets out a growl of frustration and glares after him with piercing eyes.

 

“Coffee?” Angela offers, looking more than slightly amused at the display and the woman smiles gratefully.

 

“I apologize for his behavior,” she offers and Hana is enraptured at the barest beginnings of an accent in her voice. She’s almost positive that her mouth is open.

 

“No problem, I got used to that man a long time ago,” Angela smiles ruefully in that way that she always does when she talks about Overwatch’s glory days. Fareeha hands Angela a mug from across the island and Angela thanks her with a smirk and a wink, Hana makes an exaggerated gagging motion which gets a snicker from the woman who just entered. Angela pours her a mug of coffee, only after smacking Hana on the head with it, and offers it to the woman. The woman smiles again and, wow, Hana has seen a lot of things in her life that she’d describe as magical, but that is, without a doubt, Disney levels of magical. 

 

Hana has to try her best not to go into cardiac arrest.

 

“Thank you, Doctor Zeigler,” she says again in that adorable accent and she’s really not making it easy on her. She takes the mug, downs the scalding black coffee in one long gulp which Hana finds mildly terrifying (and incredibly attractive), sets the mug down and brushes the back of her hand across her mouth.

 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got a sixty-year-old millennial bastard to kill.” With that, she’s out the door and Hana just stares as she leaves, because what the literal hell has she just dragged herself into.

 

_ ~|Present Day|~ _

 

Brigitte is still ridiculously pretty.

 

Really, it isn’t fair. People who are injured, beat up, bleeding, and/or bruised should not be so ridiculously pretty that they can make her heart feel as if it’s trying to escape her chest. However, Brigitte is that special kind of pretty. The kind that doesn’t stop with pretty eyes and a blinding smile, the kind that goes all the way down to her bones. 

 

So when Brigitte lays limp in her arms, eyes pressed closed and breath slightly stuttered she feels so guilty when she’s struck by how beautiful her friend is. Brigitte is possibly dying, this shouldn't be her thought process, but she never was the best about keeping her thoughts on the right track. She spares the wreckage of their transport a look, flames licking hungrily over the hull and over cracked leather seats like they meant nothing. She finds herself gripping onto Brigitte just a little bit tighter.

 

“C’mon Brigitte, wake up,” she hisses softly, shaking her just a little bit more. The entire left side of her face is stained red with blood and dirt, but she still manages to crack her eyelids slightly at her urging. Hana sighs in relief.

 

“Okay, we’re going to get you sitting up, and I’m going to find something to drag you on, we’ve gotta find something, you’re not going to last long,” 

 

Brigitte just groans in response and Hana spares her another look of sympathy.

 

This entire trip has been one long extended hour of torture, as if walking past the girl in the hallways and watching her in the gym hadn’t been enough, Morrison just had to pick the two to get stuck in a car together for four days, or longer now. Hana winces as she drags over a sheet of metal she thinks used to be the truck’s hood.

 

Brigitte, as it turns out, is just as sweet as she is pretty, and damn it if Hana isn’t just a mess at this point. She’s had crushes before, dated before, but it’s so different, having a crush on your coworker who also repeatedly saves your life, vs. having a crush on some random kid walking down the hallway she sees maybe twice a day. 

 

Brigitte isn’t like Lana from Algebra 2 or Garrett from 12th-grade literature, she’s not just a face that she doesn’t interact with outside of the regular schedule, she lives with the girl, not to mention they’re working on saving the world together and she’s probably saved her life more times than she can count. So if her crush runs a little deeper than just a highschoolers fascination with another living being, she can’t exactly help herself. It, of course, doesn’t help she never got the college experience of figuring adulthood out, so she’s just left to stumble through daily interactions like an omnic that missed out on some of its programmings. 

 

Brigitte rouses a little bit at the sound of metal scraping over snow, lifting her head just a little bit from the ground. Hana drops the sheet next to her and sighs, moving over so she can kneel next to the other girl.

 

“Okay, I’m going to need you to help me, cause I can’t carry you.”

 

Brigitte meets her with a slight pout and Hana’s heart bursts right then and there. If she wasn’t already too far gone she would call that the moment she fell in love. Brigitte’s eyes are just so big and deep and Hana swears that she could spend an eternity staring into them and still find new colors in the depths. Hana swallows a squeal at the sight and places her hands underneath Brigitte’s shoulders.

 

“C’mon, I can’t carry you,” she repeats and this time is met with nothing more than a grumbled protest and Brigitte reaching up to wrap her arms around her neck. Hana does her best not to consider an alternative scenario in which she’d be doing the same motion.

 

There’s no screaming, only slight grunts of pain and effort from both of them and then Brigitte is on the make-shift sled and Hana is searching for something to tie to it. Almost as soon as Hana left her, Brigitte had closed her eyes and gone back to sleep, and Hana doesn’t really know if she should be worried or not, she’s sure she’s heard Angela say something about staying awake if you had a concussion, but she woke up last time, right? Hana finds a rope, ties it to her makeshift sled and begins her trek, dragging Brigitte behind her like an old blanket.

 

~

 

By the time Hana finds any semblance of civilization, it’s already midmorning and Brigitte has turned this sickeningly pale color. There’s not much that Hana can do about it though, considering her medical knowledge is just, cover the bleeding thing and apply pressure, which she did do, wrapped what used to be the cuff of her jeans around Brigitte’s forehead, but that still didn’t do nearly enough.

 

Thankfully, the men in the gas station she happens across do have more medical knowledge than her. They clean Brigitte’s wound and while Hana supplies them with the excuse of a car wreck, she’s hit with just how tired she is, lugging around someone at least twice her size was a workout. They offer her a bed in their backroom and she collapses almost instantly into it, vowing to try the coms after a good solid ten hours of sleep.

 

~

 

She wakes up after three when someone tightens their grip around her middle and pulls her into their chest. She’s too tired to question who or why or where. But they’re warm and they smell like a mixture of cinnamon and honey, so Hana just closes her eyes and curls into them.

 

~

  
  


The next time Hana wakes up it’s one of the men who she met earlier, Johnathan she remembers vaguely, and he’s offering her a bowl of hot soup as well as some water, and Hana’s never been more grateful in her life.

 

She takes both and watches as Brigitte continues to sleep next to her. Her complexion has returned to normal and someone at some point cleaned her face of the blood that had stained it, just leaving her with a peaceful expression and the rise and fall of her chest. 

 

Hana is hit with the strange domesticity of the scene, she curled up with Brigitte burrowed in her side, enjoying a home-cooked meal. It’s almost normal, and that scares her more than anything because her life has always been anything but normal.

 

Military parents meant growing up in an empty house with the most ‘home cooked’ thing being her sister’s mac and cheese. An older sister so much older than her meant that she never had many interactions with her beyond getting scolded or their video games. Then, when she got older she went from being just a regular fourteen-year-old to playing pros overnight, and then she was in the military, fighting robots day and night and trying not to think too hard about what it all meant. 

 

No, normalcy didn’t happen for Hana.

 

But right now everything’s quiet, save for the wind outside, and there’s a warm body burrowed against hers, she’s got good food in her stomach and she’s safe. It’s normal, domestic, and it sets every nerve in Hana’s body on edge.

 

Then Brigitte lets out this massive yawn and drapes her arms, the same arms she spent far too long admiring on more than one occasion, around her middle, burrowing her face into her stomach.

 

Hana’s nerves go crashing back down so fast that she nearly gets vertigo. She can actually feel herself melt back against the bed. Maybe it’s not so bad, maybe she could live in this moment, warm, safe and quiet.

 

Brigitte’s steady breaths guide her back to sleep.

 

~

 

When Hana finally gets a call through to Overwatch headquarters it’s already past 10 on the 23rd and her and Brigitte are piled into the bed of a truck while some friend of Johnathan’s drives them back down the mountain towards Denver Colorado. Morrison is less than enthused that the mission went south, but Angela silences whatever scolding he might’ve given them by bombarding her with questions about their wellbeing.

 

As always Hana is touched by how much the woman cares, but she’d rather die before she told Angela that. Brigitte’s awake again, although she’s still sulking over making Hana drag her for longer than five hours over frozen terrain until she nearly froze to death. She tells Angela that everything is fine and that they’ll wait for transport in Denver once they get settled in, and she hangs up the phone feeling more human than she has since the car crash.

 

“Well, on the bright side, you might get to go home for Christmas after all,” Hana offers, trying to lighten Brigitte’s mood. Brigitte doesn’t appear to have heard, instead focusing on the passing trees and snowflakes landing in her hair and on the blanket she’d wrapped around herself after they got into the truck bed. Hana’s smile falls from her face and she sighs, leaning back against the side of the truck.

 

“I’m sorry for all this Hana,” Brigitte mutters softly and Hana glances up. Brigitte still isn’t looking at her, but she isn’t actively avoiding her gaze either. Instead, her eyes are focused on something distant that only she can see. Hana chews her lip.

 

“None of it was your fault. It was supposed to be a simple transport mission, how were we supposed to know Talon would just show up,” she tries again for comfort, but Brigitte just shakes her head.

 

“Not just the attack, although I am sorry for that too, you shouldn’t have had to deal with me being useless like that,” Hana tries to interject, but Brigitte continues over her, “what I’m really sorry about is all my complaining about not getting to see my family when you’ve clearly got it a lot worse off than I do.”

 

Hana pauses, does she? She never really thought about it like that, but she guesses that ‘not traditional’ doesn’t really cut it with her family. Distant, that might be a bit closer. No matter, though, it never bothered her much.

 

“Brigitte, you’re allowed to complain about not getting to see the people you care about. My family has just never been close, but that doesn’t really bother me, I mean, I’ve got Angela, and Lena, and, well… I’d like to think I’ve got you now.”

 

Brigitte blinks, once, twice, three times before she seems able to fully process her words. She opens her mouth, then snaps it back closed, repeating the action before looking away and brushing her hair behind her hair. Hana finds it insanely cute.

 

“I… thank you, Hana…” Brigitte’s voice has dropped down to this insanely soft volume and if this girl gets any sweeter Hana thinks she’ll have a heart attack. Hana smiles back at her and offers a hand to the taller girl.

 

“You’ve saved my life more times than I can count, and after this mission, I’d like to think of you as my friend, so don’t apologize for any of this, and other than that whole, blowing up and careening down the side of a mountain, thing I had fun.” Hana offers a smile and Brigitte laughs, low and breathy and Hana feels a familiar heat rushing down her spine.

 

“Well, then I’ll have to almost die more often,” she mutters which earns a shove from Hana. Brigitte laughs again, sitting back up, in front of them the radio crackles to life underneath Johnathan’s friend’s fingertips. Hana vaguely recognizes the tune from something Lena forced her to listen to a long time ago. Hana begins humming along and is met with Brigitte’s incredulous look.

 

“Don’t do that,” she mutters and, with more than a spark of mischief Hana begins singing along, loudly.

 

Now, Hana is far from musically inclined, and she knows that, but damn if the resulting laugh that bubbles up from Brigitte’s chest doesn’t make her feel like she could sing in front of a cloud of ten thousand, then nothing will.

 

And that’s how Hana ended up singing along to Taylor Swift in the back of a truck with a woman twice her size crying from laughter, and half in Hana’s lap. All in all, Hana thinks it’s one of her better moments.


	3. III

The first time it happens Hana puts it down as an accident.

 

It’s their first night back in Overwatch headquarters, and the first night since they left, that Hana’s spent alone so it makes sense that she would have trouble getting to sleep. Her spending the duration of that time thinking about her former bed (ground? Snow? Truck Bed?) mate is just a coincidence.

 

The second time it happens, however, Hana knows that she’s in far too deep.

 

She’s in love with the person closest in age to her who currently resides in the same base and she doesn’t even have Lucio to talk her out of it this time.

 

Okay, so ‘in love’ might be a strong phrase. Maybe ‘hopelessly and completely crushing on’ is better, but Hana doesn’t really know how to deal with either phrase and, well, she’s never been a person to do things halfway.

 

Hana walks into the kitchen, hoping to distract herself from her predicament with pretending to be grossed out by Angela and Fareeha’s unabashed flirting, only to find the two mysteriously missing and her predicament brewing the morning coffee instead.

 

“Rough night?” Brigitte asks, smirking slightly in Hana’s direction from the other side of the counter. Her hair hasn’t been pulled back into its signature ponytail yet and there’s just a hint of drowsiness still in her face and Hana’s really trying not to implode here.

 

As it is, she forgets that conversation usually require a response and instead just makes a vague grabbing motion towards the coffee maker. Brigitte laughs, it’s slightly rough with early morning rust and Hana’s actually dying here, before handing her the pot of coffee. Hana pours herself a mug and pretends that she’s just tired enough that she doesn’t quite know what she’s doing.

 

“Where’d Angela and Fareeha go?” She finally manages to get out once she’s had a good couple gulps of scalding coffee. Brigitte’s face turns a strange pink color and she pointedly glances towards the Medbay. Hana blinks.

 

“You’re kidding,” she says, but Brigitte just nods faintly.

 

“My room’s right beside Angela’s,” she supplies and Hana groans, dropping her face into her hands. 

 

Without warning the metal doors burst open and in droops a still half asleep Lena Oxton, glasses askew and hair even more of a mess than normal. However, she scarcely makes it two steps into the room before she takes in Brigitte’s still red face, Hana’s covered one, and the absence of two women. She bursts out laughing, raising her arms in victory.

 

“Hana! You owe me 20 quid!” She shouts and Hana just mutters darkly into her mug.

 

“You two bet on this?” Brigitte asks, eyebrows raised and voice a slightly higher pitch than normal. Lena grins, vaulting over the counter to sling an arm around Hana’s neck. Hana continues to glower at the older woman.

 

“Listen Bri,” she starts and Hana blinks, since when were these two so chummy? “Han an’ me have been dealing with those two dancing around each other for over a year now, of course, we bet on it!”

 

“Only because you’ve been hanging out with Jesse too much,” Hana interjects and shrugs her shoulders free of Lena’s hold. She receives the patented puppy pout ™ for her trouble. Brigitte just shakes her head, but Hana catches the slight twitch of her lips before she hides them behind her coffee mug.

 

“And what was the bet exactly?” she asks and Hana sighs heavily.

 

“Whether or not they would get together within the year,” she casts a glare at Lena, “I still can’t believe you won with less than a week to go,” but true to her word she begins digging around in her pockets for her wallet. Before she can start counting out bills though, Lena lets out this strange squealing noise, like a popped tire, before tearing out of the room in a blur of blue light. Hana waits two seconds and she promptly returns with two packages clutched in hand.

 

“I completely forgot you two missed Christmas,” she mutters, plunking both down on the counter and promptly causing the liquid in Hana’s coffee to leap dramatically into the air. Brigitte blinks, blush returning to her cheeks.

 

“Oh, Lena you didn’t have to get me anything,” Hana and Brigitte say at the same time. Brigitte’s face lights up a brighter red and Hana’s pretty sure hers is rising to join it. Lena casts Hana a risen brow which she pretends not to see.

 

“Riiiiight,” Lena mutters before turning to unstack the packages, they’re both horribly wrapped with tape sticking out in several directions and Hana’s pretty sure she can see where she ripped the paper and tried to cover it up with more wrapping paper, but it’s still probably the nicest gift she’s received. 

 

“The thing is that, with Angie’s whole ‘mum’ thing,” Lena turns to hand Hana’s package to her, beaming like the overexcited five-year-old she is, “I like to think of you as a little sister.”

 

Hana feels a strange mixture of elation and a sinking feeling enter her stomach as she gingerly takes the package.

 

“Well now I feel bad for not getting you anything,” she mutters, but Lena just waves her hand dismissively.

 

“Don’t worry about it, I know you don’t celebrate,” she then turns to hand Brigitte her package, “and as for you, well I had to get a gift for Overwatch’s newest family member,” she grins and Brigitte laughs. It’s a little more awake than last time, but the bashfulness of the laugh sends Hana’s heart soaring.

 

“You, Lena Oxton, are a gem,” she offers and Lena just laughs.

 

“Well go on you two!” she shouts, gesturing to the packages, “I wanna see if I guessed right.”

 

Hana rolls her eyes but begins tearing into the packaging. Once she finally makes it past all the layers she’s met with a small, soft, pink thing and she just stares for a solid ten seconds.

 

“Lena Oxton, how on earth did you…” she trails off and Lena grins broadly.

 

“I may have paid off an old friend for theirs,” she mutters and Hana laughs, pulling the stuffed bunny free from its paper. She catches Brigitte’s surprised look.

 

“Isn’t that from your first merch sale, those are worth, like, three hundred dollars!” she seems to register what she said and her face again turns red. Vaguely, Hana wonders if Brigitte was always this easy to fluster and she just didn’t realize it.

 

“How would you know how much these cost?” she teases and is rewarded with the red color reaching Brigitte’s ears.

 

“I- er, uh,” she stutters and Lena chuckles faintly.

 

“She’s been a giant fan of yours since you started.”

 

“Lena!” Brigitte cries and she just bends over laughing, her glasses fall straight off of her nose and onto the counter while Brigitte continues giving her a death glare and Hana’s quick to join her. 

 

“That’s adorable!” she hears herself utter before she can stop herself, and feels her own face flush ridiculously. Brigitte doesn’t seem to notice as she’s now hiding her face in her hands and Lena’s still laughing too hard to care.

 

“Shut up…” she mumbles and Hana goes right back into her own laughter.

 

It takes a total of five minutes, five minutes of Brigitte complaining and five minutes of struggling to breathe, for the laughter to die down. At that point, Brigitte’s face has been reduced to just a dusting of pink on her cheeks and a ridiculously cute pout, but Hana’s learned that pretty much everything this girl does is cute.

 

“Now that that’s done,” Lena mutters, still slightly out of breath with laughter, she’s actually crying, Hana can see the glistening tear tracks, “why don’t you open your gift.”

 

Brigitte fixes Lena with her best glare. “This better not be a gag gift Oxton, or they’ll never find the body.”

 

Lena feigns a gasp, “I thought I was a gem!”

 

“You lost all gem privileges after…”

 

“After talking about your celebrity crush when you were seventeen?”

 

“Lena Oxton you-!”

 

“You had a crush on me?!” Hana interjects and, yup, there goes the blush again.

 

“Jus-Just shut up!” she yells and tears into the package to avoid talking, but Hana’s mind is racing. Brigitte had a crush on her? Brigitte ‘smiles like sunshine’ Lindholm had a crush on her when she was seventeen?! 

 

“Holy shit Oxton,” Brigitte stops suddenly, pulling out this beautifully constructed clock. It’s nothing fancy, as far as Hana can tell it’s just plain stainless steel, but the legs are twisted over and over around themselves and each other until they fully circle the face of the clock which is suspended by thin steel wires all around. The back fo the clock is exposed showing working gears and widgets and several things that Hana can’t name. Finally, the clock hands themselves are wonderfully crafted with little tiny engravings that Hana can vaguely see as names.

 

Lena smiles wryly, “Your father helped with that one,” she offers and the smile that Brigitte sports is genuine.

 

“You might just get your gem privileges back,” she mutters and  _ damn that smile _ . Hana finds herself having to bite her bottom lip in order to avoid cooing over it.

 

Lena stands with a clap as if she’s about to begin a cheer and stretches.

 

“Well, as fun as this has been, I’m going to go pay our resident doctor and Amari jr. a little visit, if you’ll excuse me,” with that she tips an imaginary cap and disappears out the door, leaving Hana and Brigitte alone with their gifts and thoughts.

 

Brigitte makes a face suddenly and gives Hana a concerned look.

 

“You guys don’t call me Lindholm jr. do you?” she asks and Hana takes a second to respond.

 

“What? No,” she half laughs, “No one actually calls Fareeha, Amari jr. At least no one who wasn’t in Overwatch before.”

 

“That's a relief,” Brigitte mutters and relaxes back against the counter, and Hana just can’t resist it.

 

“They call you Torb jr.”

 

“What?!” Brigitte spits her coffee out all over the counter and Hana  _ dies _ . 

 

She honest to God dies. She sinks to her knees laughing so hard that she can’t see and all she can hear is her own laughter echoing through the empty halls of the base and Brigitte’s confused and embarrassed spluttering. She thinks she could get used to this kind of morning.

  
  


~

  
  


Brigitte gets the call three days from Christmas.

 

She knew she was going to get it sooner or later, but she’s still glad it came when it did. Last time she wasn’t home for Christmas she got the call at four am on the 26th and she was still slightly drunk from the festivities Rein had dragged her to.

 

This time, however, she’s just slightly still embarrassed from the conversation she had with Lena and Hana earlier. Why Lena seems to be out on a one-woman mission to out her in front of Hana, she has no idea, but it’s getting quite ridiculous.

 

“Brigitte!” her mother calls happily from the other side of the holoscreen and Brigitte feels a smile pull it’s way up to her face.

 

“Mama!” she calls with just as much enthusiasm and Ingrid smiles widely.

 

“Oi, make room for me!” she hears a voice cry followed by several other indignant cries of ‘I want to see!’ and ‘c’mon give me a turn’ and Brigitte can’t help but laugh at the expression that comes over her mother’s face as a sea of children try to all cram into the camera’s lens.

 

“Hello George!” she cries to the camera waving, “and Mary, and Gerard, and Drew, and Hylla, and Maja, and Eli.” All of the children piled on top of her poor mother start talking at once and Brigitte can’t make out a single word, but she doesn’t think she’s smiled this wide in a long time and it kind of hurts.

 

“All right kids,” a voice calls over the cacophony and their faces all turn away from the screen. “Give your mother and I a chance to talk to Brigitte, you’ll all get your turn.” There’s a collective ‘aw’ before they all retreat and the suddenly empty space is filled by her father.

 

“Papa!” she calls, smiling just as broadly and Torbjorn smiles back. She’s sure that she can hear the fire crackling over the screen. That pang of homesickness comes rushing back and she inwardly curls in on herself.

 

“How’s my girl doing?!” Papa calls and Brigitte forces a smile.

 

“I’m doing fine Papa, nothing that the doctor can’t handle,” she knows what he really wants to ask and knows that she can’t answer, not here, not without being in person. Her mother sighs.

 

“You’re just like your Godfather, always so reckless,” she mutters and Brigitte laughs.

 

“Don’t I know it, you forget who patched him up all the time,” she Mama just hums vaguely in agreement.

 

“I still don’t like you going out there and getting yourself hurt, especially over the holidays, I thought you said it was supposed to be safe,” she’s verging dangerously close to what can’t be said, but Brigitte knows better than to chastise the woman who raised her.

 

“I’m fine Mama,” she mutters and pulls back her hair to show off the, now healed, cut she got on the mission. “See, good as new. Besides, it’s not like I was alone.”

 

“That’s right!” her mother exclaims suddenly, and, oh no she really shouldn’t have brought that up, “You were with that D. Va girl weren’t you? What’s she like, you always admired her-”

 

“Mo-om,” she whines, pressing her face into her hands while both her parents laugh heartily at her misfortune.

 

“That good eh?” Papa asks and she’s sure that she’s the same color as her hair.

 

“Papa!” she complains and they laugh again. She huffs, seems everyone’s laughing at her these days. This is almost as bad as when Gwen started seeing that airline pilot, she remembers how their parents interrogated the poor man over dinner, unmoved by both Gwen’s and her protests. She suddenly registers something.

 

“Wait, where’s Gwen?” she questions her parents and the smiles slowly subdue themselves. Brigitte feels a sinking feeling in her stomach.

 

“She didn’t make it this year,” Papa mutters and Brigitte blinks. “Said she had a ‘major project’ she had to stay and work on and she’d try to make it for your mother’s birthday next year.”

 

“But that’s not until April,” she mutters and both her father and mother nod. Brigitte just stares. Her family has always been freakishly close, no matter how many of them there were. She used to joke they could make their own army some day of just Lindholms. But then she left to follow Reinhardt, and Gwen left to pursue her own career. It won’t be more than a year before George is off to college too. She doesn’t want to think about what will happen after that. She doesn’t want her family to scatter.

 

Then she remembers Hana, smiling and laughing so hard she was crying and she hardly spoke to her family. She remembers how Lena had called her her little sister and ruffled her hair.

 

“People grow up Brigitte,” her mother says and her smile is fond if not a little sad. “And they leave the nest. Family won’t always be the most important thing in your life, and right now the most important thing in your sister’s is her job.”

 

“Yeah,” she mumbles faintly and chews her lip. She’s interrupted by a knock on the door. “I gotta go,” she mutters, casting a glance at the holoscreen, “but I’ll call back later, I know they’ll want to bombard me about school,” she offers a smile and her parents both beam back.

 

“Take care of yourself, sweetie,” her mother offers and Papa chuckles.

 

“And don’t you let that little Christmas elf talk you into any of her funny business.”

 

“Who-” she starts but the call shuts off before she can finish and she sighs. “Love you guys too.”

 

The knocking comes again, louder this time and Brigitte sighs, pulling herself away from her desk and kicking her way to the door.

 

The room in Gibraltar is ridiculously tiny and she isn’t nearly a neat enough person to try and figure out how to properly fit all of her machine parts and assorted items in it so it all just remains a cluttered mess on her floor. Once she manages to make it to the door without stepping on something sharp she flings it open to find one smirking Lena Oxton standing on the other side.

 

“Who are talking to?” asks and Brigitte blinks.

 

“My parents…?” she responds and Lena sighs, rolling her eyes reflexively.

 

“Boring,” she mutters, “But practical, anyway, I’m here because a little birdie told me that the mission might’ve gotten a little, what’s the word, personal?”

 

Brigitte groans, but to be fair she knew this was coming. Lena was friendly when she showed up, but the woman had a knack for sticking her nose in places it didn’t belong.

 

“Do we have to do this now?” she asks, glancing at the clock, “It’s three in the afternoon, don’t you have anything better to do?”

 

“Nope,” Lena says and weasels her way into Brigitte’s room, promptly plopping down on her bed and gesturing for her to take the desk chair. Brigitte sighs, already knowing in her head how this conversation is going to pan out, but she closes the door with resignation and kicks her way back over to the desk.

 

“So,” Lena begins, hands folded as if she’s about to begin leading her in prayer, “when did the crush come back?” 

 

Brigitte restrains herself from groaning again and instead, she just presses a hand to her forehead.

 

“It never left,” she mutters softly and Lena squeals.

  
  


~

  
  


The fifth time it happens Hana is ready to scream.

 

It’s never intentional, but for five consecutive nights now she’s been unable to fall asleep as her thoughts were plagued with thoughts of one ungodly adorable redhead who apparently blushes like a schoolgirl and had a smile she’s still convinced could be used to power the sun. 

 

Which is slowly killing her.

 

When she finally makes her way into the kitchen its Angela, currently wrapped entirely by Fareeha, who greets her. She smiles, but her smile disappears almost as soon as it comes.

 

“Hana, what happened to you?” she asks and Hana just grunts in response reaching around the couple to pour herself some coffee.

 

“Hana,” Fareeha calls again and Hana holds up a finger, knocking back the coffee before it has a chance to cool and then filling it up again. She then turns back towards the two.

 

“Trouble sleeping, don’t worry too much,” she offers a smile and neither of the women look convinced. Fareeha finally releases Angela so she can stand over her looking every inch the scolding woman her mother does. 

 

“You look like you have two black eyes,” she elaborates and Hana sighs. She knows exactly what she looks like, she owns a mirror, and she knows she looks like she had a fight with her mattress and lost.

 

“Okay, so maybe I’ve been having trouble for a little while-” she mutters, but quiets when the kitchen door opens and in comes Brigitte, wearing running shorts and a tank top, still slightly sweaty from her jog. Her arms are on full display along with most of her legs and Hana can see the tendons of her neck move every time she breathes.

 

“Hot Damn,” she hears herself mutter and promptly manages to smack herself in the face for the remark.

 

“Woah Hana, what happened to you?” Brigitte asks from the other side of the kitchen, blinking several times.

 

“I-” Hana looks at Fareeha and Angela for help, but both of them are giving her mirror concerned looks and she’s pretty sure she’s screwed. At that moment Lena comes in the kitchen still wiping sleep from her eyes and Hana seizes the opportunity. 

 

“I promised Lena I’d help her with a thing so I’m going to brb!”

 

“Wha-” Lena starts, but Hana seizes her arm and yanks her out the door before she can get anything else out. Unfortunately, on the way out she passes Brigitte and finds that, yes, that Honey and Cinnamon smell that’s been plaguing her three am thoughts is her.

 

She makes it down the corridor and around two corners before Lena manages to pry herself free from Hana.

 

“Hana, what the hell are you on abo- holy shit! When was the last time you slept?!” Lena’s expression morphs from frustrated to concerned in a matter of seconds and all Hana can do is sink down against the wall.

 

“I’m dooooooomed,” she groans into her hands and Lena just stands there looking confused, before it clicks. Suddenly she’s grinning.

 

“You have a crush on Brigitte don’t you?” she says and, rather than deny the obvious, Hana responds by smacking her head against the wall.

 

“I literally cannot sleep,” she grumbles and Lena laughs, but it’s not an unkind laugh. Lena sinks down the wall to sit next to her.

 

“How long?” she asks and Hana sighs.

 

“You remember when Reinhardt stole her cat?” she asks and Lena’s eyes widen.

 

“That was, what, two months ago?” she asks and Hana sighs, pulling her legs to her chest.

 

“It wasn’t that bad! Then we had the mission together and suddenly she wasn’t just this ridiculously pretty girl, she was this ridiculously pretty girl who was also ridiculously sweet. And she’s smart and she’s got this damn smile that just,” she throws her hands up in frustration and sighs. “I physically can’t handle it.” Lena looks like she’s trying very hard not to laugh.

 

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” she mutters and Hana pales. Has she been that obvious?

 

“How-”

 

“Dinner? You spilled Angie’s casserole, which I know is your favorite, all over yourself because she smiled at you.”

 

Hana sighs and buries her face in her hands.

 

“What am I going to do?”

 

“Um,” Lena raises her hand like an overexcited five-year-old. “Just a thought, talk to her?”

 

“Lenaaaaa,” she whines and Lena sighs, rolling her eyes.

 

“Alright look, as Gibraltar’s resident lesbian-”

 

“Since when were you the resident lesbian,” Hana interrupts, “and if you’re the resident lesbian then what’s that make Angela?”

 

“The mother bi disaster,” Lena says as if this is common knowledge, “and you’re the baby bi disaster.”

 

“Hey!” she cries and Lena rolls her eyes, flicking her nose. 

 

“It’s not important, and you’re stalling,” she says and Hana sighs, drooping her shoulders.

 

“Fine…” she mutters and Lena smirks, triumphant.

 

“Now, as the resident lesbian and the first person here in a successful relationship, I can tell you that she’s got a pretty serious crush on you too. So get off your ass and do something about it.”

 

“No offense Lena, but you wouldn’t be my first choice for relationship advice,” Hana mutters, although Lena does have a point. She hasn’t missed how easily flustered Brigitte gets around her and that she did openly admit she had a crush on her when she was younger.

 

“Oi!” Lena complains, “why not!”

 

“You’ve been dating Emily for five years-”

 

“So?! That just shows I’m good at it!”

 

“And you’ve yet to ask her to marry you despite how many times she drops hints.” Hana gives Lena a pointed look and her cheeks flame up to a color almost to rival Brigitte’s.

 

“I-I’m working on it!” she splutters and Hana rolls her eyes. 

 

“You live together.”

 

“Well, ye-”

 

“She’s listed as your emergency contact.”

 

“I kn-”

 

“And you literally spend four hours, nightly, on the skype with her. What do you even talk about?!”

 

“Okay!” Lena says, face as red as a tomato. “Okay! Fine, I’ll get a move on. Geez.”

 

“Good,” Hana mutters standing and brushing herself off. “Because I’m expecting to be your maid of honor.”

 

“I think you’ll have to fight Angie for that one,” she mutters and Hana rolls her eyes before offering her hand.

 

“She can walk you down the aisle,” she mutters and Lena laughs faintly. 

 

“But that’s Winston’s job.” Hana sighs.

 

“Fine, but I refuse to be flower girl.”

  
  


~| _ Two days later _ |~

  
  


Brigitte likes her coffee plain, not because of the taste mind you, but rather the smell. Coffee loses some of its earthy smell when you add milk and sugar to it, and nothing could ever wake up a person better than the deep rich scent of coffee in the morning. At least that’s what Reinhardt told her when she was twelve and too naive to question him, she never kicked the habit and in the end, she’s kinda glad she never did. 

 

So she takes her coffee black on a Sunday morning when Angela offers it to her. She smiles around a mug at the Doctor as she and Captain Amari continue their morning ritual of making goo-goo eyes at each other, and Lena is making some sort of tower with coffee creamers and, a new addition, the salt and pepper shakers. Suddenly the door to the kitchen is thrown open and in comes one Hana Song, in what looks like a unicorn onesie, and hair that is defying every law of physics that Brigitte can think of. She walks up to the counter, doesn’t even let Angela begin her morning greeting, throws the fridge open, pulls out two cans of monster, cracks both open and downs them at the same time.

 

Brigitte stares in horror.

 

“Hana what-” she starts, and Hana turns to look at her, her eyes resemble a raccoon’s and she can see the vessels in her irises. She jerks forwards unnaturally, not unlike a zombie, and grabs Brigitte by the front of her shirt.

 

“I haven’t slept in seven nights because of your damn face,” she hisses, voice low and threatening. Brigitte blinks.

 

“I’m sorry, wha-” she starts again, but is caught off by something warm and soft pressing against her mouth, and wow okay, this is happening.

 

Hana tastes like cherries and something that Brigitte can’t name, and overpoweringly of monster. It’s such a rush of flavor and action and Brigitte was not prepared and she can’t breathe, and wow is this what it feels like to be hit like a freight train?

 

Hana pulls away with an audible pop and Brigitte’s left panting for breath. 

 

Funnily enough, she doesn’t remember closing her eyes, but she has to pry them open to see that across the kitchen Angela, Fareeha, and Lena have all gone silent, staring at the two of them, and Hana is wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

 

“I’m going to go sleep now, and we’re going to talk later,” she announces and waltzes out of the room, leaving Brigitte staring at the door in her wake.

 

“Well,” Angela says after a beat of silence. “Someone owes me dinner.”


End file.
